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Former passport maker took all data when contract was terminated —Locsin


Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. has revealed that the Department of Foreign Affairs' (DFA) outsourced passport maker "took all" applicants' data as the DFA required those who are renewing their passports to bring their birth certificates.

In response to some queries on Twitter, Locsin said the DFA is "rebuilding our files from scratch because previous outsourced passport maker took all the data when contract (was) terminated."

 

 

“Because previous contractor got pissed when (we) terminated it made off with data. We did nothing about it or couldn’t because we were in the wrong. It won’t happen again. Passports pose national security issues and cannot be kept back by private entities. Data belongs to the state,” Locsin said in another tweet.

 

 

In a Twitter exchange with Locsin, DFA Assistant Secretary Elmer Cato said "Applicants renewing brown or green passports or maroon machine-readable passports are required to submit birth certificates..."

"... because we need to capture and store the document in our database as we no longer have the physical copy of the document submitted when they first applied," Cato said.

Locsin has earlier aired concerns on why applicants renewing their passports repeatedly need to submit their birth certificates.

“Isn’t the expired passport sufficient ID? How many times do you have to prove you are what the State declared you are in the expired passports?” the DFA chief said.

 

 

—Ted Cordero/KG, GMA News

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